The Mourning Song of a Mockingbird
by forsakenphoenix1
Summary: Those who know the legend of Boo Radley do not know the truth behind the history of pain and solitude.


Arthur Radley wanders through the darkness, a ghost tormented by his past. His home, a place that haunts not only the dreams of neighborhood children but of his own as well, keeps him chained to solitude and shadows. He is alone; a stranger to the outside world, to people, and to children. He is this fragile being—a ghost that frightens and peeps into your windows when you are asleep. He is this fragile being—a legend that is told to children to heighten their curiosity; a childhood myth woven by elaborate lies to cover up his absence in the world. But those who know the legend behind Boo Radley do not know the truth behind the history of pain and solitude.

"Why don't you boys go home?" Mr. Conner, Maycomb's ancient beadle, says to the disruptive group of boys standing outside the courthouse.

"Why don't you mind your own business?" William Cunningham sneers, taking a swig from the bottle of whiskey that is being passed among the boys.

Mr. Conner looks at the boys in disbelief and tries to disband them. "You should be gettin' home, it's late," he reasons with them. "You're bein' a disturbance."

"You're disturbing us," Arthur drawls. "Why don't you bother somebody else?"

"Do you know who you're talkin' to, boy?"

"Who you are don't make a difference," one of the Cunninghams responds before spitting at Conner's feet.

Mr. Conner, getting irate with the attitude of the boys, attempts to arrest them, but the Cunninghams and Arthur have youth and recklessness on their side. They grab Mr. Conner by his arms and drag him to the outhouse beside the courthouse, locking him in. They get into their borrowed flivver and drive off, laughing at Mr. Conner's loud cries to release him.

When one of the townspeople finally hears Mr. Conner's cries and releases him from the outhouse, Mr. Conner stumbles out and swears up and down that the boys who did that to him wouldn't get away with it.

The Cunninghams involved and Arthur Radley are brought before a judge who decides to send them to the state industrial school. Sending them to the industrial school, the judge reasons, is better than sending them to jail because they can receive a good education and it wouldn't be a disgrace for the Cunninghams or the Radleys. It wasn't as if the Cunninghams cared much about disgrace, but Mr. Radley did, and he believed that even sending Arthur to industrial school was a disgrace to the Radley name.

"Judge, if you release Arthur to me, instead of sending him to that industrial school, I swear he'll no longer cause any trouble," Mr. Radley says in response to the judge's order.

The judge knows that Mr. Radley's word is as true as the Bible he has sworn to uphold so he says, "All right, Mr. Radley. As long as your boy doesn't cause anymore trouble, I'll let him go."

Mr. Radley nods and thanks the judge before grabbing Arthur by the arm and dragging him out of the courthouse, whispering threats under his breath.

Mr. Radley is well known around Maycomb for keeping his word, believing strongly in giving his family a good name, and going to extremes to ensure that none of his sons disgrace the Radley name. So when the townspeople hear that Arthur has gotten himself into some trouble, rumors fly like wildfire as to what Mr. Radley will do.

When Mr. Radley and Arthur return home, Mr. Radley locks Arthur in his room, promises to return in order to punish him, and goes off muttering to himself, not understanding how his youngest son could be such a failure. After a brief talk with his wife, Mr. Radley returns to Arthur's room as promised, with an expression that Arthur cannot read.

Mr. Radley shuts the door behind him and stares at Arthur for a few moments; the silence between the two is as thick as the summer humidity outside. Arthur fidgets slightly under the stoic gaze of his father, tugging at some stray strands of his bed cover.

"What were you thinking? Associating yourself with those…hoodlums," Mr. Radley begins. "You have disgraced this family. Didn't you even think before you got yourself into trouble?" Mr. Radley looks at Arthur expectantly but cuts him off before he even begins to defend himself. "Of course not! You never think, do you?"

"I'm only sixteen!" Arthur says, finally able to speak. "I make mistakes, I'm going to make mistakes. Can't you forgive me?"

"You're going to make mistakes but you shouldn't make stupid ones! Have you got a brain in that thick skull of yours? If you do, you should use it! Have you any idea the humiliation you've caused this family because of your stupidity? I can't forgive you for what you've done. And I will make sure that you don't cause any more trouble," Mr. Radley says threateningly. Mr. Radley stalks out of the room, slamming the door behind him, leaving Arthur alone in his darkened room, wishing he had a bottle of alcohol to drown his shame in.

A week goes by and Mr. Radley refuses to allow Arthur to leave the home. Arthur is growing restless and he paces his bedroom day after day, even though every day seems like night after his father closes all the windows and doors, not allowing sunlight to enter the disgraced Radley home.

"How long are you going to keep me here for?" Arthur says one day, approaching his father who is sitting in his rocking chair, reading _The Maycomb Tribune_.

His father doesn't look up from the paper and ignores Arthur as he turns the page, the sound of the newspaper crumpling echoing in the heavy silence of the Radley living room.

"Father," Arthur says, "you can't keep me locked in this prison forever."

This time, Mr. Radley does look up from his paper. "You keep quiet, Arthur, or you'll wish you were dead when I'm through with you," he snaps. "You will never cause trouble in this town again."

Arthur shuts his mouth, quietly retreats back into his room and, closing the door behind him, thinks that he's closing what's left of his life out of his room as well.

After a while, Arthur loses count of the days, weeks, and months he's been kept a prisoner in his own home. The outside world, though it does not forget his name, forgets who he is, and tales are woven to explain his absence. Arthur is able to gaze upon the outside world through dirt-filmed windows, glimpsing life he wishes he could experience once again, but he is not able to touch this world and that is what he misses the most.

Fifteen years pass and Arthur regards himself with a peculiar unfamiliarity when he gazes into the mirror. His face is sallow from lack of sun and his eyes are glassy; he is so unlike the boy he used to be. He hates his father for what he has done. But he hates himself more for what he has become.

_Snip-snip-snip_, Arthur cuts pictures from the _Tribune_ to paste in his scrapbook. His father passes him, his footsteps heavy on the wooden floor, stumbling slightly from drinking.

"You stop that noise," he says, stopping beside Arthur, watching him cut out images.

_Snip-snip-snip_, Arthur ignores his father and continues cutting up the _Tribune_.

"I said stop it!" his father says again, growing agitated. Mr. Radley reaches down to grab the scissors from Arthur's hand, but Arthur is quicker; he nonchalantly digs the scissors into his father's leg. His father cries out in pain before falling to his knees. How ironic, Arthur thinks, that his father (the so-called king of this shadowed palace) is kneeling before the captive prince. His mother runs out of the house screaming and Arthur laughs quietly, hauntingly, before returning to the task at hand.

Instead of sending him to an asylum, because it would be a disgrace to the Radley name, and Arthur has already disgraced the family enough, they decide to lock him in the basement of the jail. Arthur isn't quite sure how long he is forced to stay in the basement, though he's sure it isn't as long as the last time he was a prisoner. When his father comes to collect him for the second time of his life, Arthur can't help but have a feeling of déjà vu. He leaves the jail with his father whispering threats under his breath that this time, Arthur would never see the outside world again.

The second time Arthur is kept prisoner in his home, his father keeps his word. Mr. Radley keeps a careful eye on Arthur at all times and locks sharp objects away so that Arthur cannot harm them again. Arthur wanders through the sun-starved shadows and feels as though he has become a ghost. He thinks wryly that it is fitting then, that the neighborhood children call him Boo.

Many more years pass and Arthur's father dies. But his father's place is soon taken by his older brother Nathan. Nathan is like Mr. Radley in every way, unyielding and arrogant. He is a silent murderer, not of men, but of innocence. His mother, who is kinder than her husband and Nathan, is Arthur's last hope for freedom. But after her husband's death, she is never the same. Arthur thinks that like him, she is awake but dead on the inside. She wanders from room to room, calling out for her husband, looking for a light in the endless sea of shadows. She is far gone, too far gone to be saved, and she soon dies. With Nathan caring for him now, Arthur's freedom slowly slips out of his hands.

When Nathan goes into town (following the footsteps of their father), Boo likes to gaze out at the world he's missing. After some time, his attention is drawn to two children; the Finch children. Through the window, Boo watches the children carefully, as often as he should dare; they have become a source of escape for him. They are freedom and innocence—things he wishes he knew as well as they do. After a while, they become his children and he watches them grow and learn.

In the summer, when the sun is hot and the air is sticky with humidity, he watches the children play with their friend, enacting a scene that he's heard dozens of times, a scene that has become so deeply woven into the legend that has become "Boo Radley" that it's difficult to discern truth from myth. In the summer, the boy offers friendship and freedom and ice cream on the end of a fishing line. Arthur wonders, as he watches the boy's father walk him back home, if the fishing line would have been strong enough to hold the weight of these promises.

In the fall, when the air becomes crisper and the children leave every morning for school, Arthur rummages through his memories. He finds items that he once loved and hides them in the knot of the tree, hoping the children will treasure them as much as he had. When he no longer has any memories left to give, he sits down in his father's old rocking chair and carves the boy and girl into bars of soap with a kitchen knife. But his brother patches up the knot with cement and Arthur is heartbroken. He watches from the window as the boy stands in the filtered light of his porch and cries. Arthur, in the shadows of his tormenting home, cries for both their losses.

In the winter, Arthur watches one of the houses in the neighborhood erupt in flames. His children stand before the house, silhouetted by the flames, shivering in the cold. Arthur quickly grabs one of the blankets carefully folded on the moth-eaten sofa and slips outside the door. Without a word, he drapes the blanket over the girl's shoulders and creeps back into the shadows of his darkened world.

When the summer flowers begin to bloom again, Arthur hears stories from Nathan about the trial of Tom Robinson. Nathan also says that Atticus Finch has taken on the challenge of defending Tom Robinson. It is a failure, Nathan says, and in his heart, Arthur knows this is the truth. And it is with great sadness that Arthur watches his children's hearts break.

When summer fades, Arthur's children need him again. He hears a scuffle outside of his bedroom window and looks out to see a drunken man lunging after the boy. Stealing outside as fast as he can, he rushes towards the man and pulls him away from the boy. The man has a knife in his hand and he is waving it wildly at Arthur. Arthur looks around for the children; both are lying on the ground, the boy's elbow is at an odd angle, and the girl is caged inside her costume. Arthur reaches for the knife and thrusts blindly at the man; he can feel the knife penetrate flesh and Arthur is sickened, instantly thinking of the sound the scissors made as they pierced his father's leg. The man falls and lays motionless but at the moment, Arthur does not care. He gathers the boy in his arms and brings him to his home.

He watches from the shadows as the doctor tends to the boy and he listens carefully as the girl—Scout, her name is Scout—retells the events of the night, finally noticing that he is in the room. Because the light of the house is uncomfortable for Arthur, who is used to darkness, Scout takes him outside and sits him down in a rocking chair. After a while, Scout takes him back inside to say goodbye to the boy—Jem, she calls him. He feels this strange new emotion when he pats Jem's head and his heart _thump-thump-thumps_ in his chest. Arthur knows that he will have to return to the confines of his prison and he feels his heart breaking.

Scout leads Arthur back to his home. He releases her hand when they get to the front porch and he turns the doorknob slowly, not daring to look back as he walks into the house, allowing the shadows to fold around him. He shuts the door, never to see the world again.


End file.
